45 Castle Street

Early C19 townhouse, now offices (2023).

MATERIALS: red and silver-grey bricks in Flemish bond. Brick and painted render to the rear.

PLAN: three storeys across three bays onto Castle Street under a pitched roof. Two and three-storey extensions to the rear, seemingly constructed in at least three phases. The former garden of the building has been developed, with neighbouring plots, as a car park.

EXTERIOR: the brickwork of the principal elevation has a decorative arrangement of burnt headers and red stretchers. The ground floor has been rebuilt and subsequently altered. There are three round-arched openings with fanlights, the westernmost opening has a six-panelled door and the two eastern openings have fixed, nine-pane windows. Between are two six-over-six sash windows with flat gauged-brick arches.

The first and second floors each have three windows under flat gauged-brick arches. The first-floor windows are six-over-six sashes, and the second-floor windows have horizontal proportions and were probably three-over-three sashes, now C20/C21 six-pane casements. There is a brick dentil course beneath the shallow projecting eaves.

To the rear, the early building has been obscured by later extensions of various dates. These are of brick and rendered brick with windows of different character and date. One of these extensions includes a piece of heavily weathered stonework carved with quatrefoils inset into the brickwork.